Ghost Voting: Mass. Isn't Alone!

You may recall that the practice of legislative "ghost voting" got some bad press around here recently. In April, Burlington representative (and one-time DLC '100 To Watch' honoree!) Chares A. Murphy cast a series of votes in the House chamber when he was physically on the Virgin Islands. (Speaker DiMasi is getting to the bottom of that, right?)

But now it looks like the Mass. House might have stolen the idea from -- horror of horrors -- the backwater, Bush-loving, Tom DeLay red-staters of Texas. As it turns out, they're a little less subtle about it down in the Lone Star State (or the Austin media is more savvy): check out this KEYE-TV special report with video footage of legislators traipsing around, pushing vote buttons willy-nilly.